70
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
It’s a graceful, engaging film — I enjoyed it. But it could have been called "The Tasteful Dozen."
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
67
Turns out it was even trickier than originally imagined and that for all of its best efforts, The Monuments Men remains an unwieldy, overtly sentimental (but still emotionally distant) epic.
58
Smothered by its lighthearted approach, The Monuments Men attempts to make a grand statement about the valiance of dying for the sake of art, but fails to create it.
60
Clooney occasionally shows a surer hand: He gets great work from Downton Abbey’s Bonneville — notably in an emotionally charged scene revolving around Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges — and has a fine monologue himself, in which Stokes dresses down a high-ranking German commander (a moving encapsulation of the American spirit at its best).
75
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
Who knew? The work of the Monuments Men is fresh territory for film, and Clooney builds the story with intriguing detail and scope.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper
This is a solid albeit slow-building film with few dull moments.
63
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
Clooney, for the first time in his directing career (“Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Ides of March”) never finds the sweet spot, and never quite wrestled the script into a shape entertaining enough to make the liberties he and Heslov took with the facts worth it.
30
Clooney has transformed a fascinating true-life tale into an exceedingly dull and dreary caper pic cum art-appreciation seminar — a museum-piece movie about museum people.
70
Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek
The Monuments Men fails in its grand ambitions, but it's still satisfying in bits and pieces, like a busted statue. Even a tribute made of shining fragments counts for something.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
Something less than monumental, The Monuments Men wears its noble purpose on its sleeve when either greater grit or more irreverence could have put the same tale across to modern audiences with more punch and no loss of import.